From
The Guardian
ITV has drawn up a radical plan for a three-way merger with
Channel 4 and
Channel Five that would prompt one of the biggest shakeups in British broadcasting history.
Executives from ITV, which is expected to report a huge drop in profits when it unveils its annual results for 2008 next week, believe merging the UK's three main advertiser-funded commercial broadcasters may be the only way to guarantee its survival in the face of the most challenging market conditions for a generation, MediaGuardian.co.uk can reveal.
ITV executives are thought to have outlined the plan to government along with several other options.
An ITV spokesman confirmed that the broadcaster is looking at "a number of radical ideas" as part of its response to communications minister Lord Carter's interim Digital Britain report.
One of ITV's proposals is to roll the three main advertiser-funded commercial channels – ITV1, Channel 4 and Five – into one, creating a broadcasting giant which would rival the BBC in scale and scope.
This combined operation would save hundreds of millions of pounds by merging back-office functions and cutting jobs, which would allow it to continue to invest in programming across its three main terrestrial channels and smaller digital outlets, including ITV2, Film4 and Five USA.
However, the new broadcaster would control well over 60% of the British TV advertising market, and the government would have to set aside competition law for the merger to take place. It would also infuriate commercial rivals, most notably BSkyB, in which Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation is the largest shareholder, which would face a powerful new competitor.
